by W E Johns
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: GROUNDED
CHAPTER II: THE QUIET LIFE
CHAPTER III: DEATH COMES TO POLSTOW
CHAPTER IV: MOSTLY QUESTIONS
CHAPTER V: TRELAWNY
CHAPTER VI: ENTER THE GHOST
CHAPTER VII: CONFESSION BY MOONLIGHT
CHAPTER VIII: NO NINTH LIFE FOR A CAT
CHAPTER IX: STRANGE INTERLUDE
CHAPTER X: LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
CHAPTER XI: THE BOOK
CHAPTER XII: THE ACCUSING FINGER
CHAPTER XIII: BIGGLES EXPLAINS
CHAPTER I
GROUNDED
“You know, Bigglesworth, I think it’s time you had a rest.”
The speaker was Air Commodore Raymond, head of the Air Police Section at Scotland Yard. His eyes were on the face of his senior operational pilot, and he spoke seriously.
Biggles looked surprised, and a little hurt. “Is that a nice way of inviting me to retire?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” answered the Air Commodore, quickly.
“Then what’s the matter, sir? Have I slipped up somewhere, or somehow, over something?”
“No, but I’m rather afraid you might unless you lay off and relax for a while. You’ve been working at high pressure for years, at a pace no man can stand indefinitely.”
“But—”
The Air Commodore raised a hand. “I know what I’m talking about; and I know all the arguments you’re going to put forward. Over a period of a good many years I’ve been listening to them, and not only from you. I don’t want you to crack. The suggestion I’ve just made is never welcome. Some fellows take it as questioning their courage or ability, and therefore as a personal affront. But if you’ll look around for some of those who refused to listen to common sense you’ll notice they’re no longer with us.”
Biggles frowned. “That’s a cheerful thought to hand me on a fine summer morning, I must say.”
“It’s true, and you know it. Do you ever look at yourself in a mirror?”
“Unfortunately I have to every morning in order to shave.”
“And what do you see? No—don’t tell me. I can see for myself. It may not have struck you but you’re looking tired, strained. Those shadows under your eyes tell a story that’s easy to read. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s inevitable when a man has logged as many hours in the air as you have. And your flying hasn’t been on a regular run with everything laid on.”
“Thank goodness for that. I wasn’t cut out for a bus driver. For me there was no future in that.”
The Air Commodore’s eyes still rested on Biggles’ face. “Well, what about it?” he asked quietly.
Biggles looked resigned. “Okay, sir, if that’s how you feel. What do you suggest I do with myself?”
“Get yourself off to a nice quiet spot in the country, preferably by the seaside, and take the weight off your feet. Do nothing. Relax. Give your brain a rest and your nerves a chance to slacken. You’ll feel better for it.”
“I feel all right now.”
“That’s what you think because it’s what you want to think; but I know better. Get away from it all. Everything’s quiet at the moment. There’s nothing the others can’t handle. Forget about the office. Should anything important turn up I can always recall you.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue. If you won’t be persuaded I shall have to make it an order. You’ve been running on full revs for too long and it’s up to me to see that you throttle back and give your engine a chance to cool down.”
“May I fly—”
“You’re not doing any flying. You’re not going near an aircraft. You’re grounded until further orders.”
“But I shall go round the bend, doing nothing,” protested Biggles.
“Oh no you won’t. At first you may find it a bit of a bind, but you’ll get over that and wonder why you didn’t think of taking some leave before I had to make you.”
“But I must do something.”
“Try lying by the sea watching the waves roll in. When you get tired of counting them close your eyes and let them lull you to sleep. There’s no better medicine, When you fed you need a little exercise, as a change from chasing crooks round the world try hunting shrimps among the rocks. They’re nearly as hard to catch.”
Biggles smiled wanly and reached for a cigarette. “As you say, sir. I have a weakness for shrimps but I seldom get time to peel their little hides off.”
“You’ll have time now. Incidentally, you’re smoking too much. With a stiff sea breeze blowing in your face you won’t get through half as many cigarettes. That, too, will be all to the good.”
“It’ll be a queer sensation to have nothing to think about. Where can I go where I shan’t be pestered by people trying to sell me ice cream and lollipops?”
“I’ve the answer all ready. I can put you on the ideal spot. It’s a cosy little pub, right off the beaten track, on the South Cornish coast. The food is excellent; the service first class and the beds comfortable. All you’ll need will be your small kit, a swim suit, a pair of flannel bags, a couple of shirts and a light raincoat.”
Biggles nodded. “I see you’ve got it all worked out, sir. Is this the place you dash off to from time to time?”
“The same. It’s called the Southview Hotel. It stands with its feet practically in the sea near a hamlet by the name of Polstow. The nearest railway is fifteen miles away so you’ll need your car. The place is run, very efficiently, by a Major Payne and his wife. A charming couple. You’ll like them. They know me well I’ll call them on the phone and let them know you’re on your way. They’ll make you comfortable. You can do anything you like within reason. The radio is in a separate room so you won’t be worried by that if you don’t want to hear it.”
Biggles drew a deep breath. “Fair enough, sir. If it’s good enough for you it should be good enough for me. I’ll put few things in s suitcase and press on.”
“Send me a postcard to let me know how you’re doing.”
Biggles got up. “Of course. I wouldn’t be likely to forget a thing like that. Everyone sends postcards from the seaside.”
Which explains, briefly, why the following day found Biggles sitting on a boulder with his feet in the sea near the village of Polstow, in Cornwall, watching the tide recede from a snug little cove to expose a curving stretch of glistening sand and seaweed-festooned rocks.
He had not yet begun to count the waves. He was wondering how long his nerves would stand the strain of enforced inaction without snapping.
CHAPTER II
THE QUIET LIFE
Biggles had found all the Air Commodore had said about the hotel more than justified. The food and service were good, and while it would not have claimed to be in the luxury class it had an ambience that raised it above the level of an ordinary country pub.
He had been there for a fortnight, doing nothing but laze about, when the calm serenity of the village was shattered by an event which, while it did not directly concern him, had the effect of creating an atmosphere from which, in so small a place, he found it difficult to disassociate himself.
The first few days of doing literally nothing had been an even greater strain than he had expected; but the phase had passed, and from then on, as the Air Commodore had predicted, as his nerves relaxed under the influence of rest, good food and fresh sea air, he more easily adjusted himself lo the unusual experience of going to bed and getting up in the morning with nothing on his mind.
He had found Major Payne, a retired army officer in the late fifties, cordial and hospitable. His wife, a cheerful, good-looking woman rather younger than her husband, was charming to everyone as she went about her work of running the hotel
. He had got to know them well and liked them both.
There were ten bedrooms, which set a limit to the number of guests. Most of these were people on short holidays and they usually came and went without Biggles even knowing their names. There were, however, four permanent residents. They had been staying at the hotel for more than a year, and with these he had had a certain amount of conversation.
The first was an old merchant navy captain, a widower named Gower. He was one of the bluff, breezy type, with definite views on almost everything. His chief occupation was reading “thrillers”, and he boasted that he read one a day. Garrulous and self-opinionated, he was not the man Biggles would have chosen for a constant companion. Critical of criticism, as are most critics, in argument he could be intolerant, even truculent; but he was really a simple man and there was nothing to dislike about him. In expressing his opinions he said what he thought, and in this respect he was at least sincere. He had been all over the world so he and Biggles had at least one thing in common.
The other three were a family, a Mr. Graveson, his wife, and their nineteen year old son, Paul. There was nothing remarkable about any of them. Mr. Graveson was an oil prospector whose health had broken down from long service in the Middle East and was now living on a pension provided by the company for which he had worked. A semi-invalid, his conversation was confined almost entirely to the one subject with which he was familiar—oil; which interested Biggles not at all. His wife was a dour, stoutish lady of a certain age who spent most of her time knitting socks and pullovers for her son.
Biggles had tried to make contact with this young man but had failed. An anaemic, unsociable, neurotic-looking sort of lad, he made it clear that he preferred to be left alone. He had obviously been thoroughly spoiled, and still was. It pained Biggles to hear the offhand way he spoke to his parents. Captain Gower had something to say about that, of course. “What he needs,” he would growl, “is a thundering good hiding. A year or two before the mast, as I had it in my young days, would knock some of the nonsense out of him.”
“I wouldn’t be too hard on him,” protested Biggles. “Saudi Arabia is no place for a kid to be brought up. Payne tells me he’s never been to school. That’s always a handicap. All he knows came from a private tutor or his mother; and a temperature of a hundred and twenty in the shade isn’t an ideal condition in which to learn anything. Aside from all that, you and I, who were born in a different generation, find it hard to keep pace with the modern trend. Discipline isn’t what it used to be.”
“You talk as if you were sorry for him.”
“In a way I am. Anyhow, it isn’t for us to criticize.”
The object of Captain Gower’s wrath either dashed about the countryside in a red sports car his doting parents had just bought him or went off alone with a butterfly net and satchel. His hobby was said to be entomology, but as Biggles had no more interest in butterflies than he had in oil he did not bother to join him on his expeditions.
Occasionally, after taking her for a run in his car, Paul brought in a girl who lived in the village and was actually a friend of the Paynes, who had introduced them. Her name was Vera Harrington. A vivacious brunette with a ready smile, quick-witted, always well dressed and neatly groomed, she was undeniably attractive, so it was easy to understand why Paul was obviously more than a little interested in her. According to Gower she had for a time worked in London as a model, but having decided she preferred a country life she had returned to her mother, who had a house in the village and at that time was still alive. Biggles knew her well by sight, but had never spoken to her, Paul having pointedly declined to make the introduction. Biggles gathered from Major Payne that she was popular in the village, always being ready to take part in any local affair.
The village of Polstow comprised a number of grey stone houses, none modern, some in rows or pairs but others detached, scattered along a quarter of a mile of sandy hill that fringed a low cliff which held back the sea. At the bottom end, in a dip as it were, for beyond rose another hill, isolated in its own grounds stood the hotel. From it, in the direction of the village, the road climbed gently to the far end of the street where frowned a mediaeval church. There was no resident incumbent and the vicarage was in a sad state of disrepair.
One or two of the cottages had been condemned by the local authority and were falling into ruins, with hedges overgrown and the gardens abandoned to weeds. Some of the others had been restored and were well kept. It was in one of these lived Vera Harrington with an elderly servant named Miss Lewis, a person Biggles had not so far seen.
The main topic of conversation at this time was the annual Flower Show, organized to take place in a few days in the parish hall.
Who lived in the several other houses, with one or two exceptions Biggles did not know. He had not troubled to inquire; but he thought the majority of the men, from their appearance, worked on the land, at farms in the district.
One man he had come to know, from encountering him digging in the sand at low tide for lugworms, was named Trelawny, generally known as Mick. He had chatted with him, once or twice. Single, and living alone, he was a dark, handsome, wild-looking young giant of a man in the late twenties who owned a decrepit sailing dinghy and with it earned a somewhat precarious living by fishing, chiefly for crabs and lobsters, which he sold to the hotel or to odd people who had ordered them. He appeared to manage.
In a seaman’s blue jersey, sea boots, hatless, with a mop of black curly hair and tiny gold rings in his cars, he made a spectacular figure. It was said that his parents had been gypsies, and from his appearance and habits that might well have been true. Biggles had never seen the place but had been told he lived alone in a tumbledown shack just beyond the far end of the village, away from the other houses. Biggles had met him several times on the beach, and had found him, as so many men who live alone, inclined to be taciturn, but always polite. He knew the coast, the habits of the fish in its waters, and the local weather.
There was of course the usual, and typical, village pub, called the Fisherman’s Arms. Biggles had never been inside the place, having no reason to do so, but he had seen the man who ran it, a corpulent, heavily-moustached individual named Hardy, standing in the doorway with his thumbs in the armholes of a waistcoat crossed by a watch chain rather too massive to be gold.
Vera Harrington lived in a picturesque old thatched cottage named, appropriately since it was thatched and said to be one of the oldest houses in the village, The Old Thatched House.
Biggles was already on easy terms with the woman who ran the sub-post office, a Mrs. Hayward. This was also the village shop where a curious variety of commodities could be bought, and this naturally made it the centre of local gossip. Such news, clearly, was more important than events that happened in the rest of the world. For anything out of the ordinary, however, it was necessary to make a journey to Truro. This, for those who had no transport of their own, meant a walk of two miles to the main road, which was served by a twice daily bus service.
A few regulars made brief visits. On Sunday mornings a curate arrived from somewhere on a bicycle to take a service at the church. A postman went through in a small post office car, collecting and delivering mail at the shop. At less frequent intervals a policeman did his beat on a motor cycle. He did not always stop. Presumably there was nothing for him to do. Twice weekly a travelling van halted for a time outside the shop to offer for sale bread, meat and fish. A milk lorry went through early in the morning to collect the produce from nearby farms. It was all very pleasant and orderly. The weather remained fine and warm.
Apart from the woman at the post office, whom Biggles had got to know through calling to post the postcards he had promised, he had spoken to only one other resident, a retired doctor named Augustus Venner, who lived alone in a house the garden of which ran parallel with that of the Old Thatched House. He was a very old man who seldom went out, and, so Biggles had gathered, was unpopular with his neighbours. According to Major Pay
ne he had spent most of his life as resident medical officer on a timber estate in British Guiana. He had written a book on his experiences. He was now crippled with rheumatism. Biggles had seen him, grey and bent nearly double, hobbling about on two sticks in his garden. He had passed the time of day with him over the gate and found him to be civil enough if not cordial.
Speaking of this later with Major Payne he had learned the reason for his unpopularity. He had a bee in his bonnet about the Flower Show. He had said some rude things about it and would no longer participate, holding it to be crooked. The rule was, exhibits were supposed to be home grown flowers and vegetables only. The doctor claimed, among other things, that to win the prizes, some people in the village, and other villages that were allowed to enter, had been going to distant professional growers and buying high quality stuff which they showed as their own produce. The Major admitted there might have been grounds for this complaint in the past, but the practice had now been stopped. It had happened at other places besides Polstow. Anyway, the old man had retired from the scene in a huff and had become something of a recluse. It was a pity because the doctor was a gentleman in every sense of the word; but there it was. He was looked after by a daily woman, a Mrs. Chandler, who came in, mornings only, to tidy the house and prepare the old man’s meals.
Actually, as Biggles could buy his cigarettes at the little bar of the hotel he seldom went into the village, local gossip meaning nothing to him.
He had developed a regular routine. First, an early morning swim in the sea. Then breakfast. After that he would walk the length of the beach and amble between the rocks in bare feet examining the miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam left in the pools by the tide. After lunch he glanced through the newspapers which by that time had arrived and then lounged on the terrace overlooking the sea for the rest of the day. Towards sunset he was usually joined by Captain Gower who, with a glass of rum in his hand, had many a good tale to tell of his adventures at sea.